Sometimes I’m just staggered by the sophistry coming from our opponents. Take these statements from New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan:

Last time I consulted an atlas, it is clear we are living in New York, in the United States of America – not in China or North Korea. In those countries, government presumes daily to “redefine” rights, relationships, values, and natural law. There, communiqués from the government can dictate the size of families, who lives and who dies, and what the very definition of “family” and “marriage” means.

Exactly! Except…the archbishop misses his own point. Those communiqués in North Korea limit the choices made by its citizens, narrowing down what people are allowed to do with their own lives. And now, here, in America, which side is trying to do that? The side trying to ban same-sex marriage.

Dolan continues:

But, please, not here! Our country’s founding principles speak of rights given by God, not invented by government, and certain noble values – life, home, family, marriage, children, faith – that are protected, not re-defined, by a state presuming omnipotence.

Actually, our founding principles speak of citizens who are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights — not by any specific sectarian God. Further, thank the Creator that the government has redefined marriage in the past, unless you believe we were better off when wives could not own property, when they could be legally beaten (gently) and raped (but only if they were uncooperative) by their husbands.

And as for the “omnipotent state”? Seriously? Which government is claiming more power? One that lets people marry adults of either gender, or one that issues a communiqué dictating that only opposite-sex marriages are allowed.

Dolan goes on:

Please, not here! We cherish true freedom, not as the license to do whatever we want, but the liberty to do what we ought; we acknowledge that not every desire, urge, want, or chic cause is automatically a “right.” And, what about other rights, like that of a child to be raised in a family with a mom and a dad?

This is truly chilling. True freedom is the liberty to do what you ought? Every tyranny in history could call itself a free country by that definition. Even North Korea can say it gives its citizens the liberty to do what they ought.

I’ll skip past his insult that my desire to build a committed life with my partner is nothing more than a random urge. Instead I’ll marvel at this irony: a man who speaks of the right of a child to be raised in a family with a mom and dad represents a church whose adoption agencies would rather leave kids with no parents at all than place them with a same-sex couple.

Can we sum up this Orwellian manifesto?

The more a government restricts your choices, the more freedom it gives you.

A government that offers you more control over your personal life is presuming its own omnipotence.

True freedom lies in the liberty to do what the government believes you ought to do, and nothing more.

A child’s right to a mother and father means some should grow up with neither a mother or a father.

Yeah. Just like war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.

“We cherish true freedom, not as the license to do whatever we want, but the liberty to do what we ought.”

Back when I was in college The Real World was a bit of a different show than it is now (not perfect, but different for sure). Anyway, during the first New Orleans season, one of the girls on the show was mormon, and when her brother came to visit and was asked about his faith and how limiting the rules of his faith are, he responded with almost the exact same reasoning. He said something along the lines of, “Isn’t true freedom being able to find the ability to live inside moral constraints?”

I was amused at the attempted stretch (or uninentional confusion) of a teenager then. My reaction seeing someone of this caliber use such a technique isn’t so nice. Pretty pathetic.

The right to be raised by a mom and dad, is up to the mom and dad that decided to conceive the child.

These are the people who have to be reminded of their obligations in that regard and discriminating against gay people won’t change that, nor can or does the government do anything about it.

And sometimes, even despite a mom and dad’s best intentions, shit happens. And it’s adoptive, step, foster or aunts, uncles, grandparents or surviving parents who have to assure a child is loved and cared for.

And no amount of discrimination against gay parents is going to change that either.

It’s so sick, I mean, absolutely wrong headed to build a whole political movement around gay people, that punishes THEIR children or the children otherwise left in the aforementioned situations.

Apparently the anti gay never heard of all the BACK UP PLANS needed for children and apparently think the back up plans should be denied the optimum ability to attend to what they must.

One wonders if perhaps heterosexual women should be banned from teaching adolescent and high school boys.
Or at the very least, heavily vetted and psychologically tested.
Certainly ALL adults who are in charge of children deserve that sort of examination and scrutiny. It’s only gay men however who get it. While straight people do not, and the next thing you hear, a teenager is pregnant or the teacher is by one of their students. Or suffering some kind of emotional crisis because of this involvement. It has as much terrible impact as priest abuse does.
The neglect and bias in media and discussions on the amount ephebo and pedophilia among straight women is a disgrace.

In the last 15 years, there has been much more exposure of this occurring. But the risks and consequences of adults who behave this way isn’t taken seriously enough.
I know it’s off topic, but it frustrates law enforcement professionals no end to be confronted with this bias.
The public isn’t cooperating with law enforcement against the guilty, but fully does so against innocent gay people.
Which helps absolutely nothing and creates more problems over all.

Why are we allowing any “Catholic” organization to be near children much less running adoption agencies. I am certain if you check the records this sanctimonious pile of shit is guilty of accessory to commit child molestation after the fact.

Ah yes, New York residents are on the verge of having legal recognition of marriage extended to same-sex couples thanks to the governor and legislators they elected representing the majority will of their constituents after an extended public debate on the issue. Yep, that sure sounds like communism all righty.

As to the country’s founding principles and “noble values,” neither of our primary founding documents, the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, nor most of the commentaries on them from the time they were written, speak of any “rights” related to home, family, marriage, or children. The Constitution does not make any reference to a diety at all — none at all. The references in the Declaration to the Creator are limited. These are not theological documents. They are political documents. The Declaration is a petition to the King of England and an appeal to the people of the American colonies. It has no legal force. The Constitution lays out how our government should be organized. Whether or not to include the Bill of Rights was a matter of considerable debate in 1789.

While there is a right to marry and a right to have children, they are not enumerated in the Bill of Rights. They are part of English Common Law. Our campaigns for the right to marry, the right to adopt, the right to bear children are all based on these rights in English Common Law AND the principle of equal protection under the law, a principle that actually is enshrined in the US Constiution.

Well if we have to protect children from being raised in a home that does not have both a mother and a father, then abortion must be made mandatory for single women who become pregnant. That’s right, mandatory. Isn’t that what the archbishop’s argument leads to, mandatory abortions for single women who become pregnant?

Certainly, lesbians who become pregnant should be forced to have an abortion to prevent the child from being raised in the wrong kind of family. If we have to protect the child from being raised by a homosexual, won’t we have to kill the child?

I don’t actually think this. I just want to see the archbishop’s head explode from thinking about it.

For the Roman Cahtolic church, the prospect of marriage equality is a serious threat to its self-image of being the moral authority for all humankind.

The state should not be omnipotent, the the Catholic church’s teaching. The church should be omnipotent. That’s the trouble with not having an official state church or religion.

This has been a problem for the Roman Catholic church since at least the Renasissance and certainly since 1517, the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. They’re still having trouble adjusting to not being in charge of everyone.

Largest criminal conspiracy in the history of humanity – that is the crime of the Roman Catholic leadership (aside, I was raised RC) and Dolan is totally involved. Why should we take moral lessons from an institution that obstructed justice, intimidated witnesses, aided and abetted rapists and defrauded parishioners by using their contributions to pay hush money to victims? Especially considering not one leader – pastoer, bishop or pope – involved in the conspiracy has been held morally or legally responsible.

That is the first question every media outlet should ask of every Catholic leader who dares to open his mouth.

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